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well, that took longer than expected
Jun. 25th, 2008 05:00 pmBut my diagnosis of last night was half right; I do have a thrombosis in my left leg, but it's not the deep vein kind but a superficial one. They gave me an anti-coagulent shot before I left and a prescription for I'm guessing three or four more -- they said once a week for a month.
We went out this morning (Joel came with to help me hobble to the tram) to the studentenartsen, basically a set of GPs for students of the UvA and two other universities in the city, which has walk-in hours every morning from 9-9:45. We got there about 9:20 and I was really surprised at how many people were already waiting...but when it got to be nearly 11:30 and everyone who'd arrived before us and quite a few who'd arrived after us had been called and we hadn't, Joel finally went back to the reception to ask how much longer we could expect to wait, and that's when he found out that they hadn't actually put me onto the schedule. Oops. The GP I saw pretty much agreed with my guess when I described the symptoms and he'd prodded my leg a bit, especially when I told him I'd been on Evra (the Dutch version of OrthoEvra) for the last 3 years. (Note to the ladies reading this -- something I didn't know was that estrogen-based contraceptive raise your susceptibility for thrombosis and the doctor said that Evra is a particular culprit. I don't know if it's exactly the same as OrthoEvra, but if any of you are using either, this is something to be aware of.) But he wrote us up a referral letter and called the hospital near where we lived to let them know we were coming, and told us to call a cab and not try to get there by tram.
By then it was nearly noon, and we're both getting pretty hungry because neither of us had eaten breakfast. While we waited in the reception at the emergency room, we did get something out of the vending machine, but that much sugar on an empty stomach is more than I can eat so I only had half. Anyway, they came for me with a wheelchair which was nice because by then I really didn't feel like walking. Checked my bloodpressure (110/80, which is pretty normal for me), temperature, took some blood (Joel's helpful comment "Wow, that sure comes out fast!"), and then a doctor came and asked a bunch of questions of which I could uniformly answer "No" (not sick, haven't been sick in a long time, haven't gained or lost weight, not pregnant, no history of thrombosis, no family history of thrombosis) except for when she started her own poking and prodding and then it was uniformly "Yes" (ouch, that hurts! Yup, there too.)
Then I went upstairs to have an ultrasound done (which I guess was pretty cool; I couldn't really see what was on the screen, but Joel could), and then they sent me back to the doctor I'd first seen, who said what I noted above -- definitely a thrombosis but superficial, in the veins near the skin, not the deep veins. About an hour later a nurse came by with my first injection and showed me how to do it (yup, I get to stick myself with needles for the next month. Eew.), and finally it was nearly 4pm and we could leave. I've got a follow-up appointment in a week and we dropped the prescription off at the apothecary on our way home, I can pick it up tomorrow.
So, not so serious as it could've been, but it's probably a good thing I saw a doctor.
We went out this morning (Joel came with to help me hobble to the tram) to the studentenartsen, basically a set of GPs for students of the UvA and two other universities in the city, which has walk-in hours every morning from 9-9:45. We got there about 9:20 and I was really surprised at how many people were already waiting...but when it got to be nearly 11:30 and everyone who'd arrived before us and quite a few who'd arrived after us had been called and we hadn't, Joel finally went back to the reception to ask how much longer we could expect to wait, and that's when he found out that they hadn't actually put me onto the schedule. Oops. The GP I saw pretty much agreed with my guess when I described the symptoms and he'd prodded my leg a bit, especially when I told him I'd been on Evra (the Dutch version of OrthoEvra) for the last 3 years. (Note to the ladies reading this -- something I didn't know was that estrogen-based contraceptive raise your susceptibility for thrombosis and the doctor said that Evra is a particular culprit. I don't know if it's exactly the same as OrthoEvra, but if any of you are using either, this is something to be aware of.) But he wrote us up a referral letter and called the hospital near where we lived to let them know we were coming, and told us to call a cab and not try to get there by tram.
By then it was nearly noon, and we're both getting pretty hungry because neither of us had eaten breakfast. While we waited in the reception at the emergency room, we did get something out of the vending machine, but that much sugar on an empty stomach is more than I can eat so I only had half. Anyway, they came for me with a wheelchair which was nice because by then I really didn't feel like walking. Checked my bloodpressure (110/80, which is pretty normal for me), temperature, took some blood (Joel's helpful comment "Wow, that sure comes out fast!"), and then a doctor came and asked a bunch of questions of which I could uniformly answer "No" (not sick, haven't been sick in a long time, haven't gained or lost weight, not pregnant, no history of thrombosis, no family history of thrombosis) except for when she started her own poking and prodding and then it was uniformly "Yes" (ouch, that hurts! Yup, there too.)
Then I went upstairs to have an ultrasound done (which I guess was pretty cool; I couldn't really see what was on the screen, but Joel could), and then they sent me back to the doctor I'd first seen, who said what I noted above -- definitely a thrombosis but superficial, in the veins near the skin, not the deep veins. About an hour later a nurse came by with my first injection and showed me how to do it (yup, I get to stick myself with needles for the next month. Eew.), and finally it was nearly 4pm and we could leave. I've got a follow-up appointment in a week and we dropped the prescription off at the apothecary on our way home, I can pick it up tomorrow.
So, not so serious as it could've been, but it's probably a good thing I saw a doctor.
